


Billet-doux

by darain39



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, sterek, well if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2018-01-02 20:54:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darain39/pseuds/darain39
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Derek did leave a note before slamming the lock into place?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Billet-doux

 

Derek remembered Laura ghosting the words in his ear one summer, back when he'd been no more than eleven or something.  She'd confided in him a silly crush on one of the dumb jocks in her grade, all giddy and girly. Happy like only a new teenager in grips of her first crush could be.  He'd caught her scribbling something in one of her notebooks, the ones that gave off a slight flowery perfume if you ran your finger against the paper, making his nose wrinkle with the strange too sweet artificial scent that laced the parchment. 

 

_Billet-doux._

The note he clasped in his hand now was written on a much plainer stock, his stiff, almost formal cursive cutting jagged black lines almost into the stark white paper.

Hardly much of a letter this.  Hardly much of anything. And yet, even before his sister's ghost had begun her teasing chant, he'd wanted to write something, anything down. Perhaps the ritual would be a way to purge the last of his survivors guilt out through the pen, the ink bleeding into the scratches, absolving him somewhat. 

 

There was none of that now though.

 

What he held in his hand was little more than a goodbye. A hurried, simple explanation that he and Cora would be leaving.  He'd try to keep in touch. He didn't know if or when at all they'd be back.

 

There we no words to explain how often Derek still woke up during the night, throat raw with screams, how he almost couldn't breathe for a couple of seconds in the darkness of the loft, until his heart would settle, his eyes would adjust.

How he kept smelling the water, now no more than a memory, physically long dried up but clinging fresh to his senses each time he's jerk awake in the dark, convinced it was happening again. Convinced Boyd was dying by his hands all over again.

 

He couldn't write anything to explain how this was just like it had been directly after the fire. Huddled up with Laura in their shitty one room rental in New York, the dank smell of the streets wafting up his nose, settling in their clothes. How to him the air was filled with the reek of people and gasoline that permeated every inch of the concrete they found themselves housed in.  Never seeming to rid himself of the noise and bustle of the giant structures and swarms around them. How the guilt became more than a smell, a permeated scent, it was a tangible presence that stayed with him for all his time in the city.

 

Laura could perhaps have written down how in the beginning of their lives after the fire, nightly she'd have to clamp her jaws down across the back of Derek's neck, puncturing fresh wounds into his skin to keep him from wolfing out completely, to stop him from screaming.

How in the weeks after he'd refused to eat or sleep or bath or dress with any semblance of a routine, he'd woken up to his own screams dying in his throat, claws out and digging into his skin, his sisters, now also his Alpha's teeth embedded in his skin. To calm him. To ground him.

How often had he felt her tears wet the back of his neck as he lay shivering in her arms, wrapped tightly around him in those early weeks  Offering comfort, drawing heat, thrumming hollow words like family through him as if they could be pushed through his skin to settle in his bones.

 

Although the paper was probably big enough, his fortitude wasn't and he left all of this out.

 

Billet-doux indeed. How Laura would have laughed at him, a teasing grin flashing behind her eyes.

 

Was he really not going to admit, while staring back at the empty walls in the sparsely furnished space, how much he didn't want to leave?  That it hurt, an almost physical ache to think that he'd be on the road again. Living out of a suitcase again. That although gossamer, so tentative and fragile, his alliances with Scott and Stiles and the rest of the humans, he'd miss not having it? He'd miss them?

 

Cora had sneered earlier when he'd tried explaining it to her. In that moment she'd looked so grown up then, hard, much like Laura had become after the fire. Determined, single minded, focused.  Sighing, offhandedly trying to tell Derek yet again that she'd stay and fight if there was really a point to all of this, him with no pack, a beta, alone. That for now at least they had each other. They could start over. Given time away from all of this to consider other possibilities. Leave Beacon Hills and Peter to the Alpha. That whatever happened next was for Scott and his gang to deal with.  There was no place for them here. There was no place for Derek here.

 

She was waiting by the car for him, having slung a duffel over her shoulder without a backward glance once he'd agreed. No sentiment left to discuss. At least for her, there was no other choices.

 

Derek folded up the note, placing it on the table by the door.

 

He swept his eyes over the apartment one final time, not sad to be leaving any one thing behind. It was different leaving a couch to rot away untended than walking away from a smile, often sarcastic, or the way even a humans eyes could flash when they were happy or angry as they often sought out Derek from across the room. Or something like that.

 

He hadn't wanted to title the note. Who really cared which one of the pack eventually came here to find it. If they would even bother?  Somehow, hearing Laura whisper over and over those silly words had made him scratch a name on the front after folding it up and placing it on the table nearest the door.

 

His eye caught the note one more time. _Stiles_.

 

Derek pulled the door closed with a hard slam, the hollow, final sound following him long after he'd gone down the stairs and climbed in the car next to Cora.

**Author's Note:**

> Billet-doux - a love letter...  
> Isn't it just such a pretty word??? I must have repeated it like 100 times yesterday since hearing it...  
> And obv with all my Hoechlin feels vomiting up on my dash with talk of him leaving somewhere in 3B AND the haunted look he had at the end of 3A... well here have this piece to burn your retina's okay?
> 
> Ps: Un-beated cause I'm a lonely, sad individual tbh...
> 
> PPS: One last thing. Ok so there isn't actually much content to the note. But headcanon is Derek isn't very good with his words just yet so I don't think he'd have left a soppy "I really like you Stiles. Come here let me lick your face" kinda note.. I think by him leaving ANYTHING and putting Stiles' name on it speaks volumes... LEAVE ME AND MY CRAZY HEADCANON ALONE OK????


End file.
